


Alexa, this is so sad.

by andonewillbringhisfall



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Song: Gorgeous (Taylor Swift), meme spells, the vast majority of my fics are first kiss fics I should start tagging them as such
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 14:39:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15536454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andonewillbringhisfall/pseuds/andonewillbringhisfall
Summary: The Magic Words class uses memes to devise new spells. The Alexa meme plays a song that describes what you're feeling.





	Alexa, this is so sad.

**Author's Note:**

> I noticed that the tag now says Carry On Series and I'm sHoOK  
> On that note, I really hope there are meme spells in Wayward Son.
> 
> Also, you can find the song that features in this fic here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUoe7cf0HYw

SIMON

‘ **This is so sad. Alexa, play Despacito** ,’ I say, for the fifth time. I’m still not sure where to point my wand while I say it. This time, I try the ceiling, but nothing happens.

‘It’s not working because you’re not sad enough,’ Penelope says.

I groan and drop my head on my desk. ‘I _am_ sad. Sad that I can’t get this stupid spell to work.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re frustrated and annoyed,’ she says, not looking up from the notes she’s writing in her book.

‘Who needs a spell to play Despacito anyway?’ Agatha grumbles. ‘That’s the most useless spell I’ve ever heard of.’

Across the room, the song suddenly starts blaring, loudly. The entire class looks around to see who’s managed to cast the spell, and of course it’s Baz. It’s always Baz, brilliant git that he is.

‘Seriously,’ says Agatha, ‘this is ridiculous. What’s the point of a spell like that?’

Across the room, the song cuts off. Baz puts his wand down on his desk and leans back in his chair, looking bored, probably because he wants us to think that using memes as spells is beneath him. If he’s so good at it he must know more about them than he lets on, though.

‘This is so sad,’ says Agatha, but she’s not even holding her wand. She’s looking around at the whole class waving wands and rings around (and Gareth, the only one standing up), trying to get Despacito to play. I guess it is kind of a waste of magic, but Miss Possibelf says it’s a learning experience. She thinks memes are a magickal phenomenon because of how quickly they spread throughout the Normal world. She says they’re vital to our understanding of how words are given power.

Most of the class has managed to cast the spell by now. Despacito is playing at different times all over the classroom, and Rhys and Gareth are singing along every time one of the versions hits the part they know. Agatha’s face is all pinched, and Penny’s chewing the end of her pen and staring into space, which means she’s brainstorming something. Baz is saying something to Niall. He catches me looking at him and raises an eyebrow. I know he’s noticed that I haven’t managed to cast the spell. I look away from him and clench my jaw, raising my wand to try again.

‘ **Silence!** ’

Everyone quiets down – we don’t really have a choice – as all the music cuts off at once. Miss Possibelf paces back to the front of the classroom.

‘Excellent work,’ she says. ‘Would anyone like to discuss the spell?’

Keris raises her hand. ‘It only works if you’re sad,’ she says. ‘And I’m not sad.’

‘I disagree,’ says Rhys. ‘People don’t usually use the meme when they’re actually sad. Magic derives from context and intention.’

‘And the meme has been quoted with other songs, often when the sadness is sarcastic,’ Miss Possibelf says. ‘So how do you think that might have affected its use?’

I tune out of the conversation, watching Baz out of the corner of my eye.

I shouldn’t watch him like this, but I do it anyway. I’ve never really been able to help it, have I? It’s different now though, since Agatha and I broke up. Or since she told me she wasn’t interested in him, but that didn’t stop me from getting upset every time he so much as looked at her. I finally figured out that it’s because I want him to look at _me_.

He does, eventually. He usually does. I think I stare hard enough that he’d feel it even if we were oceans apart. Sometimes it feels like I _think_ of him hard enough that he should be able to feel it. But the look he gives me now is venomous, so I look away.

‘I have an idea,’ Penny is saying, so I try to pay attention. ‘The person using the meme is often _not_ feeling sad; they’re feeling whatever mood is portrayed by the song they choose, even if they preface it by saying they’re sad. So I was thinking the spell could be used almost like a musical mood ring.’

‘Very good,’ says Miss Possibelf. ‘Let’s take a few minutes to experiment with Penelope’s idea and see if you can find a combination of words that will make it work the way she described it. Remember, the key to casting magic is in the intention behind your words.’

The classroom dissolves into chatter. Penny turns halfway in her seat.

‘Which one of you am I spelling?’ she asks, sounding way too eager.

Agatha rolls her eyes. ‘Spell me.’

It’s probably for the best. Penny already thinks I talk about Baz too much; she probably doesn’t need to see what goes on inside my head.

‘ **Alexa, this is so sad** ,’ Penny casts. A soft, slow song starts playing. It sounds like it’s coming from somewhere just above Agatha’s head. I don’t recognise it, but it’s a woman’s voice, something about feeling lost and lonely. I didn’t know Agatha felt that way.

I try casting the spell on Penny, but _now_ Despacito decides to start playing. Two seats across from me, Baz is watching, smirking. _Typical_ , he mouths. _Fuck you_ , I mouth back.

I’m too worked up now to concentrate, glancing at him every few seconds, and he’s not looking at me but I know he knows I’m doing it. The spell plays Despacito every time. At least now it’s doing something. Then, finally, I forget about Baz and focus on Penny and it actually works, playing some upbeat confidence anthem, which I guess makes sense since she just invented a spell that the whole class is now using. Grinning, I turn my head to find Baz – I wish the first thing I thought of wasn’t whether or not he saw me cast the spell, but he’s always the first thing I think of – but he’s not even watching. I deflate.

Miss Possibelf calls the class back to order. ‘Let’s have a demonstration in front of the class that we can all discuss. Penelope? Basilton?’

I sigh. Of course she chooses Baz. Penny better show him up.

He walks to the front of the classroom like he owns the place, which he probably thinks he does. Reminding me, again, that he’s an arrogant prick and probably evil, and I ask myself if I was out of my mind thinking about him the way I have been. Not for the first time, not for the fiftieth.

Then he meets my eyes, and I’m captivated all over again.  

He has to stop doing that. Looking for me in a crowd, even if it’s only for a second. Lifting his chin in my direction every time he does something impressive in class, like he’s showing off for me the way I try to for him. Even though I know he just does it to drive home the fact that he’s better than me.

Penny and Baz stand at the front of the room, almost like they’re facing off. He lifts his wand and she points her ring at him.

‘ **Alexa, this is so sad** ,’ Baz casts, his voice steady, confident. The opposite of mine. The same song that played before plays again, so at least I know I did it right. It’s just typical that he wasn’t paying attention the one time I didn’t fuck up.

Then it’s Penny’s turn. ‘ **Alexa, this is so sad** ,’ she says.

A pop song fills the room, which is the last thing I expected. It’s not dark or edgy at all. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s Taylor Swift.

_You’ve ruined my life by not being mine_ , she sings.

Baz starts, glancing around him quickly, wand at the ready. I sit up straighter in my chair.

_I’m so furious at you for making me feel this way._

The class has started whispering. The song is so unlike Baz. And it’s clearly about unrequited love.

He does his best to sneer at Penelope, but even from here I can see he’s shaken. ‘That’s enough, Bunce,’ he says. She lowers her ring, but the music doesn’t stop.

_Ocean blue eyes looking in mine, I feel like I might sink and drown and die._

Impossibly, his cheeks are tinged pink. Baz never blushes, even when he’s furious with me.

He lifts his wand. ‘ **Silence!** ’ The classroom goes silent, except for a few giggles. I might be staring at him open-mouthed, but I’m too shocked to care.

He fancies someone. I don’t know why that’s so hard to imagine, especially because imagining it is all I seem to do these days, but it is. He just seems so cold, so in control, like there’s nobody who could shake him like that.

‘Since when do you -’ Dev starts.

‘It’s Mordelia,’ Baz snaps. ‘She’s been listening to it on repeat.’

He doesn’t take his eyes off Penny, glaring at her like he’s trying to burn a telepathic message into her brain. Death threats, probably.

She’s looking at him like he’s a problem she’s just figured out. ‘Blue eyes, huh?’ she says slowly.

‘It’s just a song.’

‘A song that describes your emotions,’ says Penny.

I’m staring at him, but now it’s allowed, because the whole class is. Everyone else probably can’t feel their magic burning the back of their throat, though.

‘There are cats in this song. I don’t even have a cat,’ Baz says, crossing his arms.

‘Ha! I knew you listened to it.’

‘Once. In passing. By accident.’

‘Admit it. You like it because you relate to it.’

‘Or your spell was defective,’ Baz counters. I want him to look at me. I think hard about it, as if the force of my thoughts could make it happen, as if the magic leaking out of me could make it happen. I want him to look at me, because it would mean he was thinking of me and slipped up and gave it away.

‘My spells are never defective,’ Penny huffs. She’s right.

‘There’s a reason why I’m top of the class and not you, Bunce.’ He still doesn’t look at me.

‘Yes, because I’m too busy being dread companion to a certain blue-eyed someone.’

Crowley. Does Penny know how I feel? Why would she _say_ that?

He shakes his head, mutters something under his breath, and stalks back to his seat.

 

PENNY

‘His eyes aren’t ocean blue.’ I think that’s what he said. ‘They’re just blue.’

 

SIMON

I Google the song as soon as I get a chance.

_There’s nothing I hate more than what I can’t have._

Yeah. Yeah, I know what that’s like.

He flirts with Agatha after dinner. It makes me mad. I wonder if the song is about her. _Nothing I hate more than what I can’t have._ Does he know we broke up? But he doesn’t hate her. He hates –

Oh.

No.

I won’t do that to myself. I won’t even finish that thought.

But then I start noticing things I never noticed before. Like how he watches me almost as much as I watch him, only he’s so careful about it that I almost never catch him until I start trying. And how he never looks at Aggie unless she’s with me. I spend a whole day not looking at him and I notice that he’s in a foul mood after, picking on me for stupid things like my desk being messy. The more I ignore him, the meaner he gets. Or when Agatha and I go out to the Wood for spell practice – it’s easier to do stuff like that now that we’re not together, there’s less pressure – and he sees us walk back together, and then after dinner I find that he’s spelled my shoes together by their laces.

‘What the fuck did you do that for? We’re not twelve,’ I say.

‘I felt like it,’ he snarls.

(I walk down to breakfast in my socks the next morning and ask Penny to undo the spell for me. Better not to risk setting the shoes on fire.)

I bump into him in the hallway later and instinctively grab his arm. His whole body tenses, and I’m positive I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t looking so closely.

‘Sorry,’ I say. I hold on just a second too long – just to be close to him – and wait for him to pull away. He doesn’t. I let him go.

‘Watch where you’re going, you absolute numpty,’ he snarls.

I’m sure I’m just making this up. Reading into things that aren’t there, seeing what I want to see. I can’t help it.

‘You’re annoyingly optimistic,’ Baz told me once, in sixth year. ‘Though I suppose it’ll make it easier for me to catch you unguarded when I finally decide to get rid of you.’

He was right. It’s completely idiotic for me to even be entertaining the thought that he might not hate me, let alone feel what I feel.

Still. I buy the song. I listen to it every night. _I hate you so much_ , she sings. _I hate you so much_ , Baz tells me, with his eyes, every time he looks at me.

I’m not… I’m not anything. I can’t be the guy in the song. Especially not to him.

But _he_ is. To me. It’s always been him.

 

BAZ

Snow has started singing that infernal pop song.

In the shower. While he’s getting dressed. Humming while he’s doing homework.

_You’re so gorgeous, I can’t say anything to your face…_

Fuck him. Seriously, fuck him.

I’m not sure if he’s taking the piss or if he just really likes the song and can’t get it out of his head. (Alright, fine; it’s catchy. I did listen to it a few times.) He’s probably taking the piss. But there’s no way he’s figured out that he’s the one I’m in love with, because he’s far too thick. And because if he had, he would have done something about it by now. And not the kind of something that I wish he’d do.

Then he starts doing it when he passes me on the way to class, singing under his breath so only I hear him, so I _know_ he’s taking the piss. Once I walk behind him in the morning when he’s fixing his hair in the mirror – since when does Snow fix his hair? – and he makes eye contact through the mirror and sings the line about ocean blue eyes. All the blood I drank last night goes to my cheeks.

‘Snow,’ I say, ‘you sound like a dying hyena.’ Though I can think of some ways to shut him up.

‘Who are you in love with?’ is his response.

I huff and don’t respond, stalking out of the room. Then I want to march back in there and give a proper retort, because he never catches me without a proper retort, and now he’ll know that he’s gotten to me.

In Politickal Science, I feel him trying to catch my eye the entire lesson. I refuse to give him the satisfaction, staring straight ahead or at my notes the entire time, but his stare burns almost as much as his magic and I can only stand it for so long. Finally, I give in and look over at him.

_What?_ I mouth.

_You are so gorgeous, it makes me so mad_ , he mouths back, exaggerating all the vowels to make sure I catch it. I nearly choke.

I’m going to kill him. I really am. I’ll throw him into the moat and make sure the merwolves tear him limb from limb. Or I’ll wait until he pulls his sword on me and then I’ll slit his throat with it. Or I’ll kiss him until he can’t breathe.

One morning I’m woken up by the song suddenly blaring in my ear. I bolt upright and Snow’s not even in the room, though he’s probably on the other side of the door fleeing down the stairs. (He _should_ be fleeing.) His laptop’s set up on the nightstand between our beds, the volume turned all the way up. Apparently rudely awakening me like this was worth leaving his computer in my hands, unprotected. I take the laptop, go to his email, and send a dumb and mildly insulting meme to the Mage. It’s a stupid prank, but I’m too rattled to think of anything better.

The day is halfway over before I remember that the Mage probably doesn’t even check his emails. He prefers to communicate through more magickal channels, like birds, which is ridiculous, but that’s the Mage. So Snow will probably never even know that I executed any kind of revenge plot, even as pathetic as it was.

He spends the rest of the day with a smug look on his face that I’d like to wipe right off it. It’s idiotic for him to be this proud of himself, and I’m completely smitten.

I should pull something awful to pay him back, but I can’t even seem to think around Snow anymore. For once in his life, he has the upper hand and he knows it. He sings the song in my direction, and I go mute. It’s like he’s finally figured out how to disarm me, and he hasn’t even worked out my real secret yet.

The more I react, the more he does it. If I stumble over my words after he smirks at me, he makes sure to do it again. Frequently. If I lose focus in class when he stares at me, he settles into his chair with his chin in his hand and doesn’t take his eyes off me for the entire lesson. And, Crowley, when he sees me tense up after he touches my hand, I know I’m done for.

‘Baz,’ he says then, his voice softer than it has any right to be, eyes crinkling at the corners.

‘Snow, stop flirting with me,’ I say. He _should_ start spluttering and protesting and blushing, horrified at the suggestion, but he just sends a maddening grin over his shoulder and keeps walking.

I have no idea what in Merlin’s name any of this means. Snow isn’t capable of plotting. But he’s also not capable of… _this_. Whatever this is.

About a week later, I walk down to the Catacombs in the evening like I usually do to hunt, and I hear something, too faint to make out what it is, not far from the entrance. I follow the sound with my wand pulled out and I’m almost at the source when it dawns on me; it’s the fucking song again. When I find his laptop, it’s just sitting there on the ground with very little remaining battery life, the song queued up to play on repeat. He must have set this up and had it waiting for me hours ago.

It’s too much. All the staring and lingering touches, teasing me like this is all a joke to him.

I hunt quickly, then pick up the computer and march back up to our room. He’s asleep, not even waiting up to see my reaction to his little prank, and it’s utterly moronic for me to be disappointed by it, but I am. I slam the door behind me then flick on the light just in case that wasn’t enough to wake him. He bolts upright, his gaze going straight to my empty bed before he finds me in the doorway. I march over to the window, which he’s left open, of course, and hold the laptop up in front of it.

‘Give me one good reason not to chuck this into the moat,’ I say.

Snow squints at me, and it’s criminal for him to look so endearing while he does it. ‘Did you have to turn the light on for that? What time is it?’

‘Give me one reason, Snow.’

He groans and falls back onto his bed. ‘You won’t do it.’

I arch one eyebrow. ‘Don’t test me, Snow. You know I will.’

‘You won’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you like me too much?’ he tries.

I push the window open further and slide the laptop onto the ledge. He scrambles out of bed and walks over to me.

‘Come on, Baz,’ he says, holding his hands out in front of him like I’m an animal that might spook. ‘Look. I know that the song was for me.’

Fuck. He _does_ know.

‘Last chance,’ I say, giving the laptop a nudge.

‘I’m the one that you hate,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t that hard to figure it out.’

I fight not to let my panic show on my face. He knows everything. After seven years of hiding it, tormenting him, letting him torment me. He hates me. I know he does. He looks so fucking thrilled.

I take a deep breath and pull my face into a sneer. ‘Really, Snow? You think I have _romantic feelings_ for you?’

I want him to back down, or blush, but he does neither. ‘Do you?’

I laugh incredulously. ‘Crowley, you do think highly of yourself, don’t you?’

He just shrugs. ‘Not as highly as you, apparently.’

I swallow. At least I manage to hold his gaze. Thank snakes for those three inches I have on him so I can at least pretend I’m still okay, that I’m not bracing myself for him to punch me in the gut, whether physically or figuratively.

‘You’re the one who’s been serenading me with that fucking song,’ I say. It’s a weak retort and we both know it. I should kiss him just to make him back off. At the very least I should toss his laptop into the moat, just to show him I would.

He shrugs again. ‘Well, yeah,’ is all he says.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

He looks at me like I’m being slow. Which is _my_ fucking job.

‘It means I fancy you,’ he says, with a massive roll of his eyes. ‘Hadn’t you figured that out yet?’

‘You _what_?’ This is not happening.

‘I,’ he says, and swallows. His eyes drop to my lips. (This is _definitely_ not happening.) ‘I like you.’

I shake my head and step back. ‘No,’ I say. ‘You’re fucking with me.’

He stares at me, looking affronted. ‘I’m not fucking with you.’

‘No, this –’ I say, waving my hand in the general of direction of his face, his moles that I’d kiss, his mouth that’s saying these ridiculous things – ‘isn’t real. You hate me.’

Snow steps forward and grabs my hand. ‘I don’t hate you. Baz, you can have me.’

I don’t pull away. I should, but I don’t. It feels so nice, having him hold my hand, and Crowley, I’m pathetic.

‘Awfully bold of you to assume that I want you,’ I mutter, but there’s no bite behind it, because he’s brushing his thumb over the back of my hand and leaning in and I’m practically swooning.

And then he kisses me.

 

SIMON

I can’t believe he’s actually letting me do this.

I’m kissing Baz. And he’s kissing me back. And he’s tangling his hand in my hair, the other hand still holding tightly onto mine.

‘Simon,’ he keeps whispering, between kisses. I can’t believe he thought I was just messing with him. I can’t believe he thought I wouldn’t want this.

‘Baz,’ I say, pulling him closer.

It’s even better than I hoped it would be.


End file.
